Gaining Experience, and Skill Progression (v2.2)

[Raellus]

As both GM and player, I consider character growth, in terms of abilities and competence, to be a reward/incentive. IMHO, skill improvement in the T2k v2.2 mechanics seems to be an afterthought, at best .

"...the character spends experience points to buy levels in a skill. To buy a level costs points equal to the numerical value: to buy Mechanic: 5 costs five experience points (assuming the character has Mechanic: 4 already). A character must already have achieved the level immediately below the one sought, although a character can advance more than one skill level at a time (to go from Mechanic:3 to Mechanic: 5 would require 4+5=9 skill points which could be expended at the same time."

Twilight: 2000 v2.2 manual, Skill Improvement, p. 138

Under this system, it takes a really long time to bank enough skill points to buy higher levels. And it requires a GM that actually awards and tracks SP. In my campaigns, I've handled it as follows:

From time to time, I will award players with XP which may be used to boost their character's skills. XP can be awarded for the following IC and OOC actions:

• Exceptional role-playing
  
• Successful completion of difficult and/or impossible tasks
  
• IC Problem solving

Maybe my perception is skewed by the fact that I've never played T2k in any other format than PbP. Even with a fairly robust posting rate of 2-3 turns per week, relatively short firefights and conversations can take ages to resolve vis-a-vis real time. So, it often ends up taking months or years of play time to bank enough XP to raise a skill that starts at more than first or second level. When I started out GM'ing PbP, I awarded skill-specific XP as well as generic XP, but since it took so long to bank enough to actually boost a skill, I just awarded generic XP so that players could use it for whatever they liked.

Another way to improve skill levels through training, but I find the v2.2 rules concerning same to be rather convoluted.

How do you handle XP and skill progression in your campaign

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[Adm.Lee]

I have little experience with using XP in my T2k2. After a few tries, I ended up hand-waving it.

Players either didn't track skill use, or "I fired three shots, so that's 3 xp, right" needed to have it explained to them, again. My tracking it was a pain.{ Some of that may be me crossing memories with v1, though.}

In my v2.0 Merc game, their Initiative XP totals shot up rather quickly, such that all of the PCs had 4+ Initiatives, and the opposition was getting gunned down really fast. That got boring to me, at least.

[The Zappster]

When I run I have the players place a tick next to any skill they use successfully. At the end of each session I award between 1-5 xp (2-3 being average) and an initiative xp if a potentially PC life threatening combat took place. The players can spend their xp on any skills they have a tick on or save it, but when they spend even a bit they lose all the ticks from their skills.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I haven't run much in regards to T2k, I've barely dabbled in it, but I have run many Merc: 2000 and Dark Conspiracy games since the early 1990s and they both use the same Skill increase system as T2k in either the 2nd Ed. or 2.2 versions.

These have all been face-to-face games and there's never been any problem with tracking XP because most games usually result in 2-3 XP in general for each session plus extra points based on significant/intense actions conducted by the PC, excellent role-playing by the Player, outstanding results achieved by the PC/group and so on. From memory, this pretty much follows the recommendations from the various GDW games as to how much XP to award
Typically, most PCs end up with 3-4 XP per session.
I actually find this system far easier to track than something like D&D where almost any action the PCs do can result in XP awards and you're constantly updating their XP as the session progresses.

Some Referees, require that the PCs have a period of downtime before they can apply XP to a skill and raise it to the next level, some require the XP to be spent on only those skills used during the session, some allow the XP to be used during the session, some award "general" XP to be used as the Player likes and also "specific" XP that must be used on a specific skill.
I've seen all of these ideas put into use and used some of them myself but overall, the biggest issue I have ever seen with the GDW XP system, is players of a certain fantasy RPG, thinking that they don't get enough XP.

I haven't seen any particular problem with the amount of time it took for people to raise skills but then I typically used the "general XP and specific XP" approach so that after say three sessions, PCs could have accumulated anywhere from 9 to 12 XP and in particularly intense sessions, they may have even gained an extra point (potentially up to 3 extra XP over three sessions)
I was running the session once a fortnight so in real time we're talking six weeks for the PCs to gather between 9-12 (and potentially, 15) XP.
Obviously if I was running the game once per week it would have taken half that time.

My approach suited me and my group. I have heard of other Dark Conspiracy Referees who awarded more XP per session (typically 4-7 points), at the time I didn't think that was necessary but that's what suited them and I can understand why they would choose that approach once their skills got high enough that they needed to bank 7-10 points to raise a single skill.
But again, the phrase "your mileage may vary" comes into play, if the PCs are not advancing quite fast enough, then adding a few extra XP per session won't screw things up and if they're advancing too quickly, I found adding a few extra skills into the game caused a further dilution of the XP pool.

[Legbreaker]

One way of dealing with the D&D mindset may be to explain to them 1 XP in T2K is roughly equal to 100, or even 1,000 in their chosen level based system.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

One way of dealing with the D&D mindset may be to explain to them 1 XP in T2K is roughly equal to 100, or even 1,000 in their chosen level based system.

Not a bad idea that... wish I had thought of it several years ago!

[Southernap]

I know in both V1 and V2 rules they mention that the players should keep a running tally themselves each session on what skills they used and if there was a success. Such as putting a check mark next to them or in your session note book, list that you used a certain skill or even attempted to use a certain skill.

In my experience actually at a table and not doing PbP, I have had GMs award skill points for successful critical rolls on skill usage. As well as giving us skill points when we role played well, such as describing in some detail how we used a skill to achieve an action. Our GM explained that if you could talk through all the actions of a scene like you are explaining a scene from a TV show or movie complete with involving the 5 senses some how or it just sounds right, then we could get a skill point.

Another way to improve skill levels through training, but I find the v2.2 rules concerning same to be rather convoluted.

How do you handle XP and skill progression in your campaign

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I mentioned in your other thread how I experience skill improvement through training. The short version is that our GM would allow us to seek training if we were in a town for a while and identified someone that had a skill we wanted to improve or gain. We then had to roll every in game day that we were there, a 1D100 with a 50% or better on that roll to gain instruction. But contrary to how the rules are written, our GM mandated that to gain a new skill we had to be in the area for at least a month. That was to best represent how a novice/apprentice would learn off a journeyman or master. Our GM always had some index cards of about 5-8 with a bare bones set of NPCs that could fill in as trainers in a village if the players ask for one in the village. It was a luck of the draw, whether we received a journeyman or a master to train from in that specific village. The only major thing that seemed to differ from them was their instruction level and their motivation draw as to why they would provide training.

If we were being trained by someone in our party to improve a skill. We used the rules as written in V2.0. They aren't hard to understand. If you stick to the letter of the book, then a game day is broke down in to 6 different event cycles of about 4 hours per period. So you want to be trained in a new skill, say gunsmith, there had to someone in the party with the skill and with Instruction at average level. Then you have to announce to the GM, that your player wants to learn gunsmith from this other player and they have to spend one period per day, for seven total days doing this action. Then you have to roll as if you were attempting the skill for a success. If the student rolls a success then both the student and the instructor gain a skill point in that skill.

Here it is sort of simplified and broken out into some steps.

• Announce you want a skill and who will provide training
• Spend one period out an in game day (i.e the time in the game not real time) studying and being instructed
• After 7 days roll as if you are trying to use that skill.
• Success in the roll, then student and instructor gain a skill point

The biggest thing is that the players and GM have to be honest with the time rules in the game. Which we always found a pain on how to accurately game out those 4 hour periods without it all blending together. The closest we every got was that our GM after resetting our campaign once, wanted to stick to the time rules. Had a home made flip counter with a 1 through 6 on it. Then would announce "Its Period 1 this is 0001 to 0400, what do you all do". Which seemed to work for a bit till we fell off the bandwagon. After which our GM would just announce while we were in a rest period after moving for a while, if there was house keeping we wanted to do and if anyone wanted to get training. At which every session, unless our GM said in session that a new game day occurred, if training occurred after the session then we could roll off to gain a skill.

The biggest thing, is knowing how to be judicious in skill point release if you are GM. I want to say even the rules for both V1 and V2 mention that, just don't pass them out willy nilly. Make the players earn them.